Free Republic

One year after California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols decided to sell off some energy stocks that showed a potential conflict of interest with her role as a state regulator, records show her diverse investment portfolio still contains many energy interests. Nichols also sold stock in a company that stands to profit from new diesel regulations that the ARB is set to adopt this fall, and other companies that have business before the board, according to financial disclosure documents filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission. But FPPC records show that she and her husband, attorney John Duam, sold...

The grass-roots arm of the California Republican Party is backing Gov. Schwarzenegger, the group's president said Monday. The California Congress of Republicans met over the weekend at the Mission Inn in Riverside, where delegates passed resolutions supporting Schwarzenegger and his massive plan to rebuild the state's roads, bridges and schools. Delegates also unanimously rejected two resolutions criticizing Schwarzenegger's political appointments and spending proposal, said Carl Burton, president of the group. Schwarzenegger has come under fire recently for hiring a prominent Democrat as his chief of staff and for his $125.6 billion budget proposal for 2006-07. The delegates endorsed several candidates...

<p>SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday promised a broad shake-up of California's troubled corrections system, starting with phasing out wire-mesh cages for youthful inmates and reversing his plan to scale back the state's prison watchdog agency.</p> <p>The governor also removed wardens at two prisons and requested a federal inquiry into whether top prison officials covered up a probe of a 2002 gang riot at Folsom Prison.</p>